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Melba Montgomery, one of the most distinctive country singers of her generation and an electrifying \u2014 and witty \u2014 duet partner for George Jones<\/a>, Gene Pitney<\/a> and Charlie Louvin<\/a>, died on Wednesday in Nashville. She was 86.<\/p>\n The cause of her death, at a memory care facility, was complications of dementia, said her daughter, Jackie Chancey.<\/p>\n Ms. Montgomery was known to her fans and others as \u201cthe female George Jones\u201d for her unreconstructedly down-home phrasing and her gift for bending notes in the tradition of her native Appalachia. Her thrilling high harmonies put an emotional charge into duets like \u201cWe Must Have Been Out of Our Minds,\u201d a Top 10 country hit she recorded with Mr. Jones in 1963.<\/p>\n As both a solo artist and a duet partner, Ms. Montgomery placed 30 singles on the country chart from 1963 to 1986. Her recording of \u201cNo Charge,\u201d<\/a> a touching ode to motherhood written by Harlan Howard, rose to No. 1 in 1974 and crossed over to the pop Top 40.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A handful of Ms. Montgomery\u2019s other solo releases reached the country Top 40, notably \u201cAngel of the Morning,\u201d<\/a> her 1977 rendition of Merilee Rush\u2019s 1968 Top 10 pop hit. Her most consistent and enduring success, though, came with the songs she performed with others, beginning with \u201cWe Must Have Been Out of Our Minds,\u201d<\/a> a cheating-gone-wrong song set to waltz-time rhythms that she wrote herself.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought I loved another, not you\/How foolish I thought the same, too,\u201d Ms. Montgomery and Mr. Jones sang, trading lines while commiserating with each other as a Dobro guitar blubbered in the background.<\/p>\n The recording was Ms. Montgomery\u2019s first to be marketed to a national audience.<\/p>\n \u201cI was nervous as a cat!,\u201d she was quoted as saying in \u201cGeorge Jones: The Life and Times of a Honky Tonk Legend\u201d (1984), by Bob Allen. \u201cNot only was it my first major session, but it was with George Jones!<\/p>\n \u201cGeorge had been out roaring the night before, and nobody even knew where he was until an hour before the session,\u201d she continued. \u201cWhen he finally showed up, he was in a really good mood, and the whole thing came off really well.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Ms. Montgomery and Mr. Jones had an affinity for comic material about marital foibles. \u201cLet\u2019s Invite Them Over,\u201d<\/a> which they performed in close harmony style, is sung from the perspective of a couple who no longer love each other but have fallen in love with each other\u2019s best friends.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The singer-songwriter John Prine included versions of both \u201cLet\u2019s Invite Them Over\u201d and \u201cWe Must Have Been Out of Our Minds\u201d on \u201cIn Spite of Ourselves,\u201d his 1999 collection of duets with various female country singers. Ms. Montgomery was Mr. Prine\u2019s partner on \u201cWe Must Have Been Out of Our Minds.\u201d She also sang the woman\u2019s part on \u201cMilwaukee Here I Come,\u201d<\/a> another duet associated with Mr. Jones (he originally recorded it with Brenda Carter in 1968 and later with Tammy Wynette).<\/p>\n Ms. Montgomery had a country hit, \u201cBaby Ain\u2019t That Fine,\u201d<\/a> with the pop singer Gene Pitney in 1966 before releasing four Top 40 country duets with Mr. Louvin in the 1970s. Their first collaboration, \u201cSomething to Brag About,\u201d<\/a> reached the country Top 20; the song later made the country Top 10 in a rollicking version by Mary Kay Place<\/a>, of the \u201970s nighttime soap opera \u201cMary Hartman, Mary Hartman,\u201d with Willie Nelson.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Ms. Montgomery never earned accolades on a par with those bestowed on her contemporaries Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette, although she had an equally commanding voice and influenced acclaimed country and bluegrass singers like Patty Loveless and Rhonda Vincent. Nevertheless, she always received high praise from Mr. Jones, the man widely regarded as the greatest country singer ever.<\/p>\n \u201cMelba fit my style of singing more than Tammy did,\u201d Mr. Jones explained, referring to Ms. Wynette, his ex-wife and duet partner, for Mr. Allen\u2019s biography. \u201cI hate to use the word \u2018hard-core,\u2019 but that\u2019s what Melba is \u2014 a down-to-earth hard-core country singer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Melba Joyce Montgomery was born on Oct. 14, 1938, in Iron City, Tenn., one of nine children of Norman and Willie Annie Mae (Cypert) Montgomery. Her father was a sharecropper \u2014 and later, a knitting mill worker \u2014 who played fiddle and gave voice lessons at the local Methodist church.<\/p>\n Raised in Florence, Ala., young Melba learned to sing harmonies and play the banjo and guitar at home. She and two of her brothers, Carl and Earl, known as Peanut, also went on to become successful songwriters.<\/p>\n